A battle is looming in the playgrounds of Europe. Mickey Mouse is squaring off against Asterix the Gaul, Madame Tussaud and the men from Walibi. Despite the unlikely cast of characters, this is no cartoon. From Paris to London, Brussels to Cologne, it is a very real fight for the billions of dollars spent in Europe each year on leisure. The battle will be fought in theme parks, some loosely built around a cartoon character, with all the thrills of a fair on a vast scale. Disneyland launched the genre in Southern California more than 30 years ago and its rivals, future and present, are looking to cash in on an affluent and mobile market when the English Channel rail tunnel linking Britain and continental Europe opens in 1992.

Let me see if I have this right. Huntington Beach Union High School District just decided to eliminate geography and computer education proficiency as graduation requirements ("High Schools Strike Geography as a Requirement," Dec. 10). This is being done, the principal says, because "it opens up electives so kids who can't fit music or ceramics in, now have a slot to do so." They are cutting back on computers and geography to open up more time for music and art! Do you think this could have any relation to our eroding international competitiveness?

The American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival opens today for two weeks at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas. Here is today's schedule: "A Thorn Under the Fingernail' Hungary, 1988, 90 minutes 6:25 p.m. Sandor Sara's taut, low-key political thriller probes brutality and corruption past and present in Hungary with an exceedingly bitter, outspoken tone. On the whole this is a spare, impressive film, set principally in a vast open plain where the film's hero (Gyorgy Cserhalmi)

Police officers on planes aren't a good idea. IDs can be forged, cover letters the same. The airlines aren't going to call each police agency that an officer may belong to and verify the ID and permission of the chief for that officer to fly with a gun. As a retired deputy sheriff who has had jail experience, I can tell you the outside gate opens for no inmate with a hostage, period. I've never seen an escape tried in L.A. County this way because every inmate knows this rule. The same should be the rule with airplanes.

Regarding "The ABCs of 'X,' " Calendar's cover stories on Malcolm X and the making of the new Spike Lee film (Nov. 15): As a 44-year-old mostly white guy, I was only mildly interested in how Spike Lee would bring the story of Malcolm X to the screen. As a young man I lived as a witness to most of Malcolm X's adult life, and sensed very little relevance to draw from. The Nov. 15 Calendar changed my view of things. The puffball reverence shown to Robert Duvall in "From All-American to All Stalin" contrasted remarkably with the interview "Spike Lee, Speaking to the Point."